


Sokkla Week 2018

by SheMalfoy13



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Breathing Exercises, Comforting Kisses, F/M, Fallen in Love, Meddling Kids, Unsaid words, a gala, a painful goodbye, a secret, a treehouse, a zapped councilman, awkward adults, fallen leaves - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-25 05:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16655473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheMalfoy13/pseuds/SheMalfoy13
Summary: My entries for Mini Sokkla week 2018. Four prompts, four oneshots.





	1. There's no way

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Day 1 - Awkwardness

“This is dumb Bumi, how much longer do we have to be here? I have stuff to do!” Izumi complained, not for the first time in the past twenty minutes or so.

They were hidden up in the top of a tree, in the palace courtyard, where the boy had- with or without permission- built himself a treehouse. She knew the thing had been up there for a couple of months now but had only climbed to it that day, after hearing his claims of a hidden romance. A hidden romance between her aunt, who was currently in the training field, very much training, and his uncle, who was nowhere to be seen.

“Just you wait, Princess, and you’ll see.” The boy quieted her down, once more, from his spot lounging on a pillow. “I’m telling you I’ve seen them, give it a moment more, and you’ll believe it too.”

Izumi sighed, and perched herself on the house’s window, looking around the little place. He’d clearly put a lot of effort into this wooden building, what with the pillows scattered around, a small table with a Pai Sho board, a neat pile of books she guessed had been borrowed from one of the palace’s libraries. She wondered how much time Bumi spent here, and if he’d built this himself. He probably had, he was skilled in hand work, and the such. A skill he’d probably learnt from his uncle.

“Bumi, I’m telling you there’s no way that can be true. I live with Azula, okay? And every time my dad even mentions Sokka, she does this face, and a few not very pleasant comments about him.” Izumi tried to argue back. “And whenever they’re at the same room together, they’re always fighting!”

It was not that she disliked the idea, or spending time with Bumi, but she just couldn’t believe him. It there was something going on between their aunt and uncle, her dad would know, right? Or her mom at least.

“Oh, ‘Zumi, you’re just so naive.” Bumi said with a chuckle, and moved to kneel next to her, ruffling her hair. “When you’re older, like me, you’ll understand it.”

“I’m not- Bumi, you mess up my hair!” She swatted his hand away. “And I’m only one year younger than you, moron!”

“Shh…” Bumi clasped a hand over her mouth, and whispered by her ear. “She’ll hear you, and then I won’t be able to win the bet!”

“Fine. But you’ll lose.” She crossed her arms over her chest with a huff.

Izumi wasn’t sure how much longer they waited, talking nonsense, and playing a game or two, but suddenly, Bumi’s elbow was digging on her side, and he pointed out to the training field.

“Look, ‘Zumi, there he is!” He called eagerly, and true enough, Uncle Sokka was on his way to the training field.

She left the cards on the floor next to her, and shifted towards the window, to get a better look. Yes, the man was marching up to her aunt, and they seemed to be talking, and then maybe arguing, they couldn’t make out the words from where they were, but the arm waving was evidence enough. Bumi was so going to lose this bet.

She turned to look at him, a winning smile on her lips, but he grabbed her chin, and turned her face to look back at the couple down there, a smirk on his.

Izumi’s eyes landed on them right on time to watch Sokka reach for her aunt’s belt, and pull her to him. Azula’s right hand raised in the air with a characteristic blue flame on it, and her uncle grabbed it by the wrist. And then, very slowly, as if for Izumi did not miss a single moment of it, her aunt relaxed on his grasp, and stood on her toes to kiss him.

“No way!” She gasped, and covered her mouth alone this time. Izumi turned to Bumi, her eyes wide open in shock. She could not believe it. This could not be!

“Told you so.” The boy was grinning like a madman, and she was stunned to silence. Her eyes went back to their aunt and uncle, Azula’s hand pulling of Sokka’s wolf tail, and his hands pulling her closer to him. “Pay up, Princess.”

Izumi groaned and let herself fall back on the tree house floor. She could not believe it!

-

It was later that day, while at the dinner table, while Bumi around with Kya, and Tenzin, and Izumi chatting with Lin, that she saw their aunt again.

Azula entered the room, and sat on the table, and about five minutes later, Sokka followed, taking a seat in front of her, next to Aunt Katara and Uncle Aang. Bumi tossed a piece of bread to Izumi, and she glared at him.

Dinner flowed as usual, conversations a mess of people talking over one another, Lin and Suyin’s quarreling, Tenzin flustered about whatever Kya was teasing him about… and Bumi’s eyes travelling from his sister to their aunt and uncle. Izumi was terribly frustrated at everyone’s unawareness, and before she knew it, she was speaking, for everyone at the table to hear.

“So, how come I didn’t know me and Bumi were going to be actually related? Are we getting a new cousin soon?” She asked, and silence fell across the table.

“What are you talking about, sweetheart?” Her mother asked, but the way her gaze rested on Izumi meant the Fire Lady knew, or at least figured, and that she should keep quiet.

“She’s talking about Aunt Azula and Uncle Sokka.” Bumi continued, saving her from further trouble. “We saw them kiss today.”

There was a minute long worth of silence, before Izumi’s father choked on his food. And then everything was a mess.

The Fire Lord was torn between coughing and gasping for air, and glaring at Uncle Sokka, who was as red as the curtains, hands held up in the air in surrender. Uncle Aang had stepped between them, and was trying to calm them down, and Aunt Katara was trying to help her father, who kept pushing her away and trying to get up to reach Sokka. Izumi’s mom had her eyes trained on Bumi, and the boy was grinning like a fool at the mess. The rest of the kids were looking around confused, and above all of that, Aunt Toph was laughing like a maniac.

Izumi’s eyes went over to Azula, to find without surprise that her aunt was staring intently at her, and despite her cool exterior, she could see a smidge of color tinting her cheeks.


	2. I'll leave with Yue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 - Secrets

“You shouldn’t be here, Councilman.” She said, and those five words were already shattering his heart, even though it was probably just the last, the one doing it. They were both smart enough, to know her choice to refer to him by title, was not unintentional. She was putting distance. It was like their very first encounter all over again.

He ignored her, he couldn’t let her do this today, and moved further into the room, shedding his outer robe as he went, and finding her sitting in the middle of the bed, still on her gorgeous dress, knees hugged to her chest. His heart broke yet again.

“I mean it, we cannot do this anymore, and you know it.” She turned to him, and he was tempted to toss caution to the wind, and march right now to the Fire Lord and the shining Fire Lady to tell them everything, if it meant he could erase the pain from the golden of her eyes.

“I know.” His voice was hoarse, and he winced as he said it, and by La this was harder than he’d thought.

Sokka sat climbed to her bed, pretending he didn’t see her shoulders tense, and knelt behind her, his fingers slowly working on removing the pins keeping her hair in that intricate updo, like he’d done many times before. Granted, it usually happened later. After they were sated, spent, his hands burning from caressing her skin, her lips full and raw from his kisses, and her hair a tangled mess from the lovemaking.

But today everything was different. Today it was all over. Zuko had finally married Katara, and what they had started as a drunken mistake, a stupid game- one where they both teased, and vexed, and ignored, and danced around each other, until they couldn’t take it anymore, and fell on the first surface available, a mess of blue and red, hands working desperate on removing the layers of clothes, the bandages, the walls they had up to keep the other one out- it would all end today.

It had been agreed like that. They were adults, they could handle it, they were not in love by any means. It meant nothing.

“Please Sokka, don’t- I can’t, if we do this…” Her voice was a plea, one he wished he’d never had to hear. One that, had he known how it would tear at his chest, would’ve never allowed to happen. Her lips should not plead like this, but for him to stay, to kiss her, to-

“We won’t. I swear.” He removed the last barrette, and her hair cascaded down the pale skin of her back. “But please, let me stay tonight. I’ll leave with Yue.”

It had started like that. When they stopped pretending it was only sex, but were both too afraid to acknowledge anything else, too stubborn to come forward, two hopeless fools.

I’ll leave with Yue, Sokka would say, and she would allow him in with feigned reluctancy, and smart words on her viperine tongue. Oh, how he loved to shut her up. Push her against a wall, the wood of her canopy bed, the thick rug in the middle of the room, and pleasure her until the only word out of her her pretty lips was his name.

“No one can ever know.” She said after a while, as his fingers played with her hair, letting the silky strands soothe the pain coursing through his body. “Sokka, if word gets out, they will make it impossible for Zuko and Katara.” 

He sighed, and let his head fall forward, forehead resting on her shoulder, and his lips burned to kiss her shoulder blade, down her spine, up her neck, every inch of her.

It’ll be our secret, she told him, the night their siblings announced their engagement, pulling him into her room, and caressing his worries away. She’d been so uncharacteristically soft that night, that he’d hoped to wake up next to her in the morning, but the rule had been enforced, and with the last trace of the moon in the sky, he’d left her.

“Azula, I-” He started, but her lithe fingers on his jaw silenced him. A fingernail played with the hair of his beard, and he closed his eyes, lips pressing down on the pulse point in her neck.

“I know, I promise.” She whispered, and shifted to face him, a hand letting his hair free from the wolf tail, and another pushing him back down on the bed.

She laid on his side, and he hugged her tight. No other word needed, they stayed there, letting the last hours of night escape their grasp, until the sky started to clear, and Yue became more and more transparent, and it was time for him to leave, before the sun made its appearance.

As Sokka was getting up though, her fingers closed on his wrist, and he held his breath, his mind willing his heart not to read more into it. He turned to find her golden gaze mistied, and it took all the strength he didn’t know he had, not to kneel right there, and beg for them to go away, hide somewhere, be happy together.

“Me too, Sokka.” His chest constricted with her words, he gave a brief nod, and her hand opened, to set him free.

As he left her room, the moon disappearing, and the sun rising, Sokka wondered if he’d ever be able to see the sky again.


	3. That's rough, Councilman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3 - Comfort

“What you doing, Princess?” His voice, although no longer such a nuisance, still managed to send a jolt of electricity up her spine. Azula had theories of why that was, none that pleased her entirely, but she was still working through them.

“What does it look like I’m doing, Councilman?” She answered, not bothering to move, or opening her eyes even.

“Well, I was going to say sleeping, but given the fact that you answered me-” He left his answer inconclusive, and she just hated when he did that. 

She cracked one eye open, and found herself staring at his very naked torso. She trailed up his defined chest, neck, that stupid bearded jawline, and finally his blue eyes staring back at her. She let her eyelid fall shut once more.

“Breathing exercises.” She answered plainly, and went back to focus on the task at hand, ignoring the man hovering above her.

“Interesting choice of position to do that.” He commented, and she rolled her eyes. It would seem he was not going to go away easily.

True, it was- unorthodox, to say the least- to be lounging on a chaise to practice her breathing, but she’d made her way to the training fields earlier, only to find the man in question using one of them, the snarky earthbender in another one, and the mighty Avatar meditating in the third. She hadn’t even tried to find another place, should she encounter the waterbender, or the Kyoshi girl. The palace was vast, sure, but somehow every time her brother had his friends over, they managed to invade it all.

So she’d retreated to the only place they never went, her favourite library. Be it because she was usually there, or because Zuko had told them to avoid the room out of sympathy for her, she didn’t know, but she usually found peace here. Until now.

“So-” He dragged the word until Azula’s lips were pressed in a fine line, and she propped herself up on her elbows, to glare at the man, only to bump her head into his.

“What the fuck?” She cursed, a hand rubbing on her forehead. “What do you think are you doing?”

Azula’s eyes closed in on the tribesman sheepish face, as he too, soothed his head. He gave a grin and a shrug, and she zapped his side.

“Ouch! What was that for?” He jumped back, and rubbed at his ribs. She took the moment, and the space to sit up straighter.

“You know very well what was that for! What were you doing so close to me, are you actively looking for me to roast you, are you that bored?” Azula countered, and sent another zapp for good measure.

“Now that one was uncalled for, I’m sure!” He held his hands up, but he was chuckling, and her blood boiled. “I was just watching you so peaceful, nothing else.”

“What?” Really, what- Her brain shut off for a moment, and she cocked her head to the side, examining him, wondering if maybe all that training under the sun had fried his brain. He did seem particularly hot, his neck glistening with a fine layer of sweat.

He grinned. Fuck, she was staring again.

“You heard me alright Princess, I was admiring your lovely, peaceful features.” He said, more confidently this time. She frowned, he really was pushing it now.

A zapp. “Hey!” Another. “Wait!” She stood and swiped him off his feet. “Ouch, I’m telling the truth!” Another zapp. “La, you’re insane.” She pressed a knee to his chest. “Damn it, Azula!”

She stilled, and her eyes closed unwittingly at the sound of her name on his lips. Agni, it had felt too good for her liking. Her knee pressed harder into his chest, and a hand closed around her ankle. Azula’s eyes snapped open, the blue on the other side was sparkling, teasing.

“Is that all?” He asked, and his fingers pressed a little tighter on her skin.

“Stop it.” Her voice, meant to be threatening, commanding, came out almost in a sigh, and she took a breath before trying again. “Stop. All of it.”

He moved his hand upwards, softly over her calf, and behind her knee, pulling her leg to the side, making her fall to straddle him instead. She stopped breathing.

Azula wasn’t sure how long it was, until either moved again, but she was very aware of the way his eyes had darkened, and his chest was heaving underneath her. Finally, it was him who broke the silence.

“You are ruthless, Princess.” His words were soft, controlled, but his hand was now up her thigh, and she was hating every second of loving it. “I’ll get some nasty bruises from this. Do you really think that’s the way to treat your guests?”

She wanted to slap him, zapp him again, pull at his hair, run her nails down his chest- So very carefully, as to not betray her own movements, Azula put her hands on each side of him, and moved down his body, until she was facing the already pink marks on his chest.

She looked up at him, his breathing was wild, and his eyes more so, and she felt her body burn under his gaze. Slowly, so very slowly, Azula kissed one of the marks. His breath caught on his throat, and she smiled to the skin, before moving to the next, and then one more. He tried to grip on her wrist, but she swatted him away, and moved further down, to the last one, just above the pants’ waist.

Azula blew hot air on the wound, and the tribesman moaned, a deep and ragged sound that coursed through her body, and made her core vibrate with it.

“There.” She said standing up, and the way he looked up at her was worth every piece of gold in the nation. “Now you’ll get all better.”

She turned to leave, and he called after her, scrambling to get up, but she held up her fingers in a threat.

“But-” His eyes were pleading, his whole body was, and he seemed to be searching for something to make her stay. “But, you missed a spot. I’ll get a bump.” He whined, and pointed at his forehead. 

She smirked. Oh no, there was no way she was doing that, being so close to his lips was far to dangerous, she knew it.

“That’s rough, Councilman.” Azula shrugged, and left the room, the groan that followed her out made up for the rest of the happy gang’s stay.


	4. Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4 - Autumn

One day, with no distinctive characteristic, other than it was a gala, the couple met.

It had been years since they saw each other last, and upon laying eyes one on the other, they were rendered speechless, for seasons had made drastic changes on their appearances.

Whereas once they had been young kids, barely teenagers, with soft features, and overflowing energy, now they were adults, to whom time had drawn new lines on their faces, and added curves and planes to their bodies.

He saw the Princess he’d never met before. Long, red and gold dress, fitted to her chest, hugging her hips, and draping down to caress the floor with each of her gracious steps. Her hair was longer, and only half of it up, adorned by her crown and a few filigree leaves, that laced on her top knot. She was courteous, refined, so much that she made everyone else at the room feel inadequate, even the host, with her delicate regalia, and poise. She was walking towards him, and he felt the air leave his lungs.

She saw the warrior she didn’t quite remember. Silky blue hues, that showed his new status of Councilman, hugging tight over muscles that weren’t there before. Broad shoulders, strong arms, a thick beard covering his squared jaw, but with his characteristic wolf tail. His height, although imposing, given that he towered over most people in the room, was not what attracted people to him, but his charisma. His laugh filled the vast ballroom, and he turned heads, hers included, and before she knew what she was doing, her feet took her to him.

Their conversation was polite, tentative, after all, last time they saw each other, they were on opposite sides of a war, and she was very enthusiastic about ending him and his friends. She made a joke about it, partly ashamed of her own twisted humor, and when he laughed and returned the jab, her cheeks coloured. 

He offered a drink, a dance, she asked for a way out of the room instead; galas were her brother’s thing, she just had to attend because appearances were important when one was trying to prove recovery. But what if you leave, he’d asked, won’t that harm your image? Not if I leave with you, she answered. He offered his arm with a warm smile, and she took it with a warm chest.

The night was clear, and the stars shone on her hair adornments, and the buckles on his coat as they walked the gardens; in silence, conversing, joking, discreetly probing at the other’s interest, catching up on what had happened in the past years. He told her about his job at the city, she avoided talking about the asylum; he explained about his inventions, his projects, she told him about the developments she’d made with lightning bending, and the ways in which she helped her brother. 

And when the gardens, and the safe words ran short, she apologised. Brief, but honest, she told him about the past that lead her to the hunt, the fight, the taunts, the broken perfection. He took her hands in his, and assured it wasn’t needed, he knew, not back then, but now he did, and he forgave her. She nodded, unable to say much more. He took the silence as an opportunity, ever the strategist, and led her under a tree.

There was nothing special about that tree in particular, in fact, it was the same kind that as in the rest of the gardens. But it was big, and its treetop had fallen almost entirely, the leaves creating a makeshift pillow to where he led her. 

If she was uncomfortable, if this was not what Princesses did, sit on the ground on a bunch of leaves, she did not complain, but played with them as he fixed some more to take a seat next to her. They match the ones on your hair, he said, and she took a hand up to touch them, a small blush on her cheeks. He moved closer to her. They don’t match anything in you, she said after a moment of exploration on his appearance. He laughed, and she shifted, leaning into his shoulder.

If he minded, if this was not apt for her to do with someone whose life she’d threatened in the past, he didn’t complain, but draped his arm around her shoulders, and rested his back against the tree. Will your friends not worry that you’re with me, she asked, after a moment of silence. He took his free hand to cup her cheek. I’d be more worried of your brother, when he finds out you left with me, he answered, tilting her head up to meet her eyes. She closed the distance and kissed him.

It was soft, and deep, and they let their hands explore one another slowly, not a single garment off, not a hair out of place. Just their tongues tasting each other, their fingers tracing the visible skin, pressing on the covered one, and letting their minds work out the rest. And it was perfect like that, there was no rush, no place to go, nothing else to do but enjoy the moment. The full moon above, the fallen leaves under, the silver of his coat and the golden of her dress.

It had been a day like any other, with no distinctive characteristic, other than it was autumn, on a pillow of fallen leaves, in garden, in a palace, that summer and winter fell in love.


End file.
